Welcome To SUNDAY Coffee+: Coffee News That Made The Headlines
Each week, Craft Beverage Jobs compiles the top headlines for Craft Coffee News & Information. On Sunday morning we post those headlines in SUNDAY Coffee+ for your reading pleasure. Whether its industry growth, new business, job openings, profiles or human interest, you just never know what will tickle our fancy from week to week. We want to make SUNDAY Coffee+ a part of your Sunday morning coffee experience. Want Sunday Coffee+ delivered via email each weekend? Sign Up Here.
Brew Coffee Bar: Kickstarter & Community In Raleigh, NC
Brew Coffee Bar Celebrates Raleigh Coffee, Beer & Art, by Sarah Keener – Technician Online
Thanks to owners A.J. Viola and Mike Sholar, at roughly seven weeks old, Brew is already establishing its roots in the Raleigh area by bringing together quality products from around the region and highlighting them in one venue.
For us, we liked the idea of acting as a gallery for coffee, beer and people. We do that through a lot of different ways, like rotating art on a monthly basis – A. J. Viola
From their days running the Raleigh Coffee Club, a weekly coffee subscription for people to try a bunch of different coffee beans, Viola and Sholar forged relationships with coffee roasters in the area.
“We were getting coffee directly from coffee roasters, and we were meeting people on street corners and giving bags of coffee. It was weird; we essentially turned into a weekly roaster coffee subscription,” Viola said. “You’d get to taste coffee from all around the Triangle. It was really cool and that really allowed us the opportunity to meet a lot of local roasters and to get to know a lot of the coffee shops in the area and see how they were producing coffee.”
Viola and Sholar soon realized they needed to expand their business after the Raleigh Coffee Club became too large to handle. They both fell in love with the idea of opening their own coffee shop.
The duo quickly accomplished their goal within a year-and-a-half thanks to loans, help from friends and donations from patrons on Kickstarter. They raised $10,000 in two weeks and were blown away by the generosity of people in the community. Kickstarter patrons stop by to see their establishment all the time, according to Viola and Sholar.
Japanese Coffee Roaster Debut’s In Boston
Ogawa Coffee planning to make US debut in Boston, Matt Viser – The Boston Globe
A popular Japanese coffee roaster is planning to make its American debut by opening a new store in downtown Boston, a significant development that signals a new growth and expansion in Boston’s specialty coffee scene.
Ogawa Coffee is planning to open a store at 10 Milk St. in the sprng, next to the Old South Meeting House in Downtown Crossing.
It’s a sign of Boston’s arrival as an international coffee destination. Caffebene, the South Korea-based coffee chain that has seen explosive growth over the past several years, also recently began opening stores in Boston as it expands in the United States.
How A Local Roaster Deals With Fluctuating Coffee Prices
International coffee prices are on the rise, but cups in Madison stay stable, by Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times
“Coffee prices have nearly doubled this year,” Alexandra Wexler wrote on Oct. 7, “with thin rainfall clipping output from the world’s biggest coffee grower and fueling worries about how already-weakened trees will fare next season.
There’s a theory that as prices go up, that encourages higher-quality coffee, Lee said. So that’s a good thing.
“Coffee’s an agricultural product and it changes year to year in quality and price,” said Mike Moon, general manager at Just Coffee. “When prices go up, we try to absorb that increase or pass it on.”
When Just Coffee does pass on the cost to 4&20 Bakery, Java Cat or Sunprint Cafe, Moon estimates it would take a relatively big increase to show up, like a dollar or more per pound of coffee.
Still, the company’s not immune to the rising cost of beans. “In 2011, we changed prices three times,” Moon said.
The dark roast at Cargo Coffee costs a little more this month than it did last. But Lindsey Lee, owner of Cargo Coffee, said that’s because the expanding business went three years without a price increase on coffee, food and prepared drinks.
Long term trends show the cost of coffee going up, Lee said, with a drought every three or four years and countries like China consuming more coffee. But he thinks that may correlate with an increase in quality, too.
Ruby Coffee Roasters: Quality Leads To Sales
Ruby Coffee Roasters sees business perk up, by Nathan Vine – Stephens Point Journal
Linzmeier, who runs Ruby Coffee Roasters out of his Amherst Junction home, was featured Oct. 15 by Stevens Point Journal Media after being named one of the 15 best new coffee-roasters in the United States according to Thrillist, a website that reports on travel, food and drink.
Our business started out a little smaller locally, but it’s been great to hear how many people are looking for us now
Linzmeier said he started by primarily selling coffee beans to out-of-state customers, which came as part of his connections in the coffee industry after 10 years of working on the West Coast. Today, Ruby Coffee Roasters sells to customers in Seattle, San Francisco and Austin, Texas
Craft Coffee Coming To Whole Foods
Allegro Coffee Roasters To Bring New Craft Coffee Experience At Whole Foods Market Berkeley, EPR Retail News
On Nov. 4, Allegro Coffee Roasters (ACR) brings a new craft coffee experience to Berkeley. Located inside Whole Foods Market’s new store at 10th and Gilman, ACR connects guests with small lots of specialty coffee and a highly skilled team of passionate coffee experts with whom they can share the experience. This is ACR’s second location; the first opened last year at Whole Foods Market in Brooklyn, New York.
ACR is built to serve an exceptional cup of coffee. Beans are roasted on-site in a gas-fired Loring™ drum roaster, one of the most precise and environmentally-friendly roasters available. The Loring roaster works with a hybrid combination of hot air and gas, which reduces energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent. After roasting, beans head to one of three Mazzer grinders (of the three, two are dedicated to the house blend and one features a rotation of single origin espressos. Terroir plays a big role in these single-origin coffees, allowing customers to experience the true “taste of a place™”). Finally, a La Marzocco Strada EE 3 Group espresso machine is used to pull each shot; this new model of machine requires a highly skilled barista to get a proper pour.
Brew Coffee Bar photo credit: Visit Raleigh